J fortnight

So did we do better in this fortnight? Well we certainly tried! The J activities began with Eliza making some jelly. You would think that we had never had jelly judging by the silly antics that went on for some arty pics of jelly as we tried to take to make it look more interesting! This first one is Jasper with his jelly...

and Jess in the background of her jelly...

On the final Sunday of J fortnight we were all free, no concerts, clubs work etc (well apart from Ken who was in bed after nights). So we decided to go on a journey. First of all we drove to Jevington. Now we didn't just go there because it began with J...

...we went to see the Hungry Monk restaurant which is where they invented.....

We thought about having a piece but it was closed....and it was £7.50 a serving!

Then we began our journey; this is how it worked. Every time we got to a T junction or cross-roads we tossed a coin; heads was right, tails was left. This is the first junction...

Finally after a tour of the housing estate in Seaford and a dead end we ended up at the seafront in Seaford (where we discovered they were flying some huge kites AND advertising a kite festival next week in Brighton for K fortnight!!!). We have been enjoying this gorgeous weather so we had packed our swimmers, just in case, and decided to stop here for our J-picnic;

Not very well-balanced but there was juicy cherries and juicy pineapple in there with the Jaffa cakes, old Jamaican ginger beer, jumbo peanuts and jam donuts!

Stopping at the beach was not one of my better ideas as it was blowing a gale and the only way to stay warm was to wrap up in a towel or lie flat so the wind blew over the top of you! However were are British so the sea had to be entered, whatever the temperature and the children did some wave jumping.

After this Eliza and Jasper decided it was too cold and got out but Jess and Katy went swimming! After a bit they had to get out too as the coast guards were clearing the sea because it was too rough. Here is Jess escaping the wind...

By then we were all feeling rather windswept so we went home!

Once home I began on the final J activity with some strawberries that we had all picked a few days earlier....jam!

I cooked and cooked it for about 3 hours, testing etc and finally put it all in the jars to cool.

The next morning it was not really very set......so I shall call it conserve instead! Why is strawberry jam soooooo difficult? I have made all sorts of different jams and jellies all my married life which have set beautifully except strawberry. I just can't seem to get it in that moment that it is set but not caramelised......tips anyone?

So onto K fortnight...I thought we did rather well this fortnight!